Carole KhakulaCarole Khakula found that taking steps, prompted by conscience, to remove gigabytes of music from her computer and phone were quickly and amply rewarded.

Music has been a strong force in my life. Up until I was 19, I feasted on nothing other than spiritual and inspirational music; the clean stuff. And spiritual did not mean ‘boring hymns’… it was marked by funky hiphop, rap…the works! Enough to keep any teenager around.

After that, I am not sure what happened. I grew more attached to all the other mainstream secular music, spending hours catching up on what I had missed during the years I had been hooked on Christian/ Inspirational stuff. I got to a point where all that I listened to was the music hitting our radio waves and TV screens. Some of it is scrappy – promoting the wrong values, crime, violence, materialism and false ideas of love. In Kenya today, when you turn on the TV at 5.00pm, all the stations play music videos.

Music is a beautiful thing, especially when it’s creative, something musicians across the world have done a fine job at. It is also a powerful avenue for communication, relaxation entertainment and healing. I listen and marvel.

However it all starts to go wrong when the message promotes the wrong values. Music has played a huge role in degrading morality in Kenya, especially in the era of video jockeying. What we are exposed to from the West, especially Afro-America, we have mistaken as a benchmark for success and fulfilment. Consequently our youth have drifted towards premarital sex since it seems part-and-parcel of a successful, complete and ‘to die for’ relationship. Our fashion sense is heavily influenced by these videos. The list is endless.

It is impacting Kenyan Culture. Our main public transport – 14 seater minibuses called ‘matatus’ – are fitted with LCD Screens playing such music videos around the clock. What our children are watching on a daily basis is worrying. Their sense of morality will be skewed. Once I got into a ‘matatu’ that was playing Ragga tracks. Two minutes later, traumatized and angered by the obscenities I heard, I shot off to find an alternative.

Whenever I go jogging, I like to plug in my earphones and listen to the radio on my phone. A few days ago I realized that I was craving something else. I couldn’t take the rubbish that is mainstream music any more. I had had enough!

My challenge as a Christian has always been to find great spiritual and inspirational contemporary music! Somehow the few Christian radio stations around hadn’t been so successful at offering me that. I still found Christian radio boring!

But weeks ago, during my devotions, I read something that jolted me. Most of the time we want God to draw close to us, but we never make a point of drawing closer to him. Immediately I knew that I had to change what remained of my pathetic music lifestyle. I got my phone and deleted all the ‘not godly’ music that I had been listening to. I did the same to my computer. I didn’t even have that much music in there, since my music is all stored in an external hard drive that I left behind in Norway last month. I remember saying to myself, ‘God must have let that happen for a reason. He must want me to learn non-attachment.’ That hard drive had about 150 gigabytes of music.

So after cleaning out these two gadgets, I said to God, ‘I really don’t know how am going to cope without this music, but I want to draw closer to you so that you too can draw close to me.’

Minutes later, I went to the radio and starting browsing through the stations! And guess what! I have found what I have been looking for these past eight years. It is a new Christian station that plays the hottest, most inspiration, most spiritual songs ever! I found all my ideas of Christian Hiphop, Crunk, RnB and Rock music there, as well as what’s ‘off-the-hinges’ in the gospel scene in Kenya! It is more than I had bargained for. Even the love songs are so clean, so pure, so real. I haven’t stopped listening to Power Radio since then, and can promise that it’s my new best friend! If you think that God doesn’t move a step closer to you when you move a step to him, you might want to rethink that! Dare to trust him! It is gold! What’s more, he knows our deepest desires.

So what are you willing to throw out of the window so God can make a step towards you? Yours may not be music.

by Carole Khakula